Cal Day brings over 35,000 community members to the Berkeley campus every April. It is the one event of the year when Berkeley turns to the wider community and welcomes it to share in the expertise of the world-renowned faculty, and witness firsthand the enthusiasm of undergraduate and graduate students.
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On Cal Day, the Archaeological Research Facility building echoes with the sounds of students learning how to chip volcanic glass into tools, and their delighted laughter as they create their own cave paintings.
These enthusiastic visitors, and more than 1,000 students in local schools who every year visit the campus archaeology center or are visited by graduate students committed to serving the public, would be surprised to learn, as Corbin Collins' asserted ("Who owns the past?" Open Forum, Sept. 5) that archaeology is "luxury endeavor for a limited audience." They might even question whether the most relevant standard is whether the pursuit of knowledge will "cure disease, prevent global warming or solve other problems of vital consequence," a standard that would rule out all but utilitarian research.
And if they did agree with this characterization, they would be completely wrong, because archaeology today makes a profound emotional impact on the public. Why else would Collins begin his essay by evoking the image of ransacked graves? Archaeological remains, and the pasts they allow us to know, have long been used in the name of unbridled colonial expansionism, European nationalism, and yes, as the general public learned from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," by fascists. No one is more aware of this than contemporary practitioners of archaeology. As a result, no one is working harder to change the way archaeologists relate to broader communities and to the general public.
As archaeologists who have dedicated our research and professional careers to using archaeology for the good of the public, we obviously think archaeology is important. Archaeology is the only source of knowledge for much of human history. Even for more recent time periods, archaeological remains can contradict established narratives of history. The political impact of archaeology is profound. Sources of great national pain about which documents were silent or memories had faded have been exposed through archaeological research. The discovery of New York's African Burial Ground brought to the fore discussions on racism past and present in American society. Not that long ago, the governor of Utah shut down analysis of human remains from the Mountain Meadow Massacre site, just as these analyses were demonstrating that Native Americans, long accused as participants in the 1857 slaughter of at least 120 men, women and children, were innocent. Archaeologists have been part of the search for remains of victims of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York, and have labored on mass graves from Bosnia to Argentina to help bring abhorrent crimes to light.
It should not be credible for anyone to claim that there is no room for a working relationship between archaeologists and contemporary American Indians. Archaeologists have increasingly worked with indigenous peoples to bring new and powerful versions of national events to the fore. Custer's last stand and other battlefields from the so-called "Indian Wars" have been excavated and tell histories very different from those of the official military record. Studies of California missions and ranchos provide evidence not only of the dire circumstances of Native Californians' lives in these institutions, but also of the ways that they succeeded in preserving their cultural values and traditions in the face of colonialism. Today, American archaeologists are collaboratively developing new histories through archeological research with African American, Latino, Asian and any number of European American communities that are descendants of sites being studied, not in opposition to them. This is done in the name of both good science and human rights.... "
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Directory of cultural resource and historic preservation firms.
Gray & Pape, Inc. Archaeology**History**Historic Preservation
Serving your cultural resources needs since 1987.
Ohio -
11-03-11
New South Associates, Inc. New South Associates is a women-owned small business providing cultural resource management services, both nationally and internationally. Our specialities include archaeology, history, architectural history, preservation planning, and public interpretati
Georgia -
03-25-11
Kerns CRM Consultants Cultural and Historical Resource Management Services
Maryland -
01-10-11
Paula S. Reed and Associates, Inc. Paula S. Reed and Associates, Inc. is a small, woman-owned corporation organized in the State of Maryland, which provides cultural resource evaluation on a nation-wide basis, specializing in National Historic Landmark nominations. We meet qualifications o
Maryland -
11-23-10
SWCA Environmental Consultants Acquires Northwest Archaeological Associates SWCA Environmental Consultants has acquired Northwest Archaeological Associates, expanding SWCA's Pacific Northwest presence with a new Seattle office offering cultural and natural resource management and environmental permitting and compliance consulting.
04-04-11
ACHP Section 106 Essentials two-day course which explains the requirements of Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act.
02-02-11
